LEGALIZE, 'MEDICALIZE' DRUGS

Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats shoot rifles with bent
barrels when it comes to their stance on gun control, argues local
Green party candidate Matthew Greenwood.

The Liberals' gun registry and their proposed handgun ban are "making
things a little difficult for gun owners, even for farmers," argues
the Thompson Rivers University student, who is just completing his
degree in economics and political science.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, use a heavy-handed
law-and-order approach, want to lock people up and "throw away the
key," according to Greenwood, adding that the NDP emphasizes a soft
approach by including youth centres as part of the solution to
curbing gun violence.

"But [gun] violence comes out of organized crime and the illegal drug
trade," Greenwood said. "So the most reasonable solution is to cut
gangs and remove the lucrative drug trade."

In other words: Legalize drugs and implement harm reduction programs,
such as safe-injection sites.

Legalizing drugs, Greenwood said, would "be a huge new source of
revenue for the government. In B.C., the No. 1 industry is pot, and
it's illegal."

Soft drugs like marijuana should certainly be legalized, whereas hard
drugs should be "medicalized," which, Greenwood said, means to
provide them cleanly and safely.
And if crime loses its major source of revenue once drugs are
legalized, gun violence will drop accordingly, Greenwood said.

"This is the least ideologically driven solution," he said. "It would
reduce gang violence."

It's as easy as understanding the basics of the laws of supply and
demand, Greenwood said, arguing that other parties haven't come up
with the same solution because of their ideological bias and
consequent refusal to look at issues holistically.
"The other parties just deal with the symptoms," Greenwood said.

"The Greens think that's an approach doomed to failure."

Green party candidate says such a move would cripple organized crime